Posted on 04/07/2012 8:32:15 PM PDT by Iam1ru1-2
Milton Friedman may have argued that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but you’d have a hard time convincing millions of Americans of that today. They know better – or at least they think they do. A record 46.5 million Americans rely on food stamps, and in 2010 the federal government paid out more money in the form of benefits than it collected in federal income taxes. But perhaps the most striking measure of the success of the entitlement state has been the way it’s eroded the stigma of being on the dole, while spreading dependency as a virtue as widely as possible. In other words: Everybody should buy everybody’s free lunch. And free breakfast too. (Did I mention free dinner also would be nice?)
The cultural shift has become so pronounced today that even some progressives are showing signs of unease. Were it not for her impeccable ideological pedigree, Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House, might have irreparably damaged her standing with her mother’s friends when she produced a brief video for HBO about her recent encounters outside a New York welfare office. In the Pelosi video, a man waiting in line is drinking beer and smoking cigarettes as he admits that he’s fathered five children by four different mothers. “I’m here to get a check … whatever they’ve got to offer,” he explains. “It’s not like they’ve got a checklist … I’m just here to get what I can get.”
Of course he was. In the video, Alexandra Pelosi quizzes one man: “Why should I help you? Why should my tax dollars be going to you?” He replies, “Because my ancestors came here to help build this place – my ancestors, the slaves.” The last time the man worked, he says, was “half a decade” ago.
Around the country, there is a lot of “taking” going on. There was some mild bureaucratic embarrassment in Michigan recently when a 24-year-old woman who won $1 million in the state lottery was found to be collecting food assistance. “I feel it’s okay because, I mean, I have no income and I have bills to pay,” explained the woman, Amanda Clayton. “I have two houses.” She was utterly without embarrassment of any kind. Like the upstanding gentleman in Pelosi’s video, Ms. Clayton was echoing the British welfare queen who declared, “I don’t feel bad about being subsidized by people who are working. I’m just working with the system that’s there. If the government wants to give me money, I’m happy to take it. We get what we’re entitled to.”…..
Clayton’s use of taxpayer assistance after buying a new home and car with her winnings was not unusual. Another Michigan resident continued receiving food assistance after he won $2 million in the 2010 state lottery. That’s what prompted congressman Dale Zorn (R-MI) to pass legislation in his state’s House earlier this year that would remove large-sum lottery winners from welfare rolls. (Legislation is pending in the Michigan Senate.)
Yet there’s still plenty of freebies left to dole out. And as those freebies multiply and as politicians up the bidding, notice how often the two sides seem to talk past one another, using words that carry radically different meanings, depending on the speakers.
While GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney was campaigning last week in Peoria, Illinois, a young woman was caught on camera declaring: “So you’re all for like, ‘yay, freedom,’ and all this stuff. And ‘yay, like pursuit of happiness.’ You know what would make me happy? Free birth control.”
Wants have been transformed into “rights” in America and ultimately into obligations and entitlements. Consider this young woman’s thought process. In the alchemy of the new entitlement culture, freedom and the pursuit of happiness are transformed into a demand for free stuff that makes her happy. You could argue with her that freedom means something other than free stuff and that the pursuit of happiness was never intended to imply a guarantee of taxpayer-financed bliss. But she knows what she wants, and she wants it for free. Romney, to his credit, told the woman that if she wanted free stuff, she should “vote for the other guy.” Romney continued, “Politicians get up and promise you all kinds of free stuff, more and more stuff that you won’t have to pay for, and you know what? We get elected that way, in many cases, politicians do. That’s not something I subscribe to.”
But the Romney heckler illustrated the way in which wants have been transformed into “rights” in America and ultimately into obligations and entitlements. The process can be illustrated this way: “I want you to buy me lunch. Therefore, I need lunch. And if I need something, I have a right to it – and you, therefore, have an obligation to pay for it.” The equation looks like this: Wants = needs = rights = obligations. The laundry list goes far beyond free lunch to include free health care, free cell phones, free birth control, free mortgage bailouts– and on and on.
We’ve seen how this worked out for the Greeks, of course. But for a growing number of Americans, what happened in Greece is irrelevant: The entitlement state appeals to voters who believe they will bear no consequences for the costs or sustainability of the program. Questions of affordability don’t come into it, because they know they will never have to pay for it. (Recall that 49.5 percent of Americans pay no federal income tax at all.) They are not thinking of the burden to their children, their grandchildren, their friends, their fellow citizens of the country, or anyone else. As long as it is free to them – it’s free. And good luck telling them otherwise.
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Charles J. Sykes is senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Institute and author of seven books, including A Nation of Moochers: America’s Addiction to Getting Something for Nothing. http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2012/03/27/The-Entitled-States-of-America-We-Want-More.aspx#page2
bttt
I often wish my self-esteem were low enough to allow me to gather at the government teat and enjoy the free life. However, I have self-respect and therefore I must forgo all the government largess that might be available to me if I were a leech.
” - - - - in 2010 the federal government paid out more money in the form of benefits than it collected in federal income taxes.”
Do you have any charts/graphs/histograms for the years 2000 to 2012?
Excellent read.
Thanks for posting this article
A record 46.5 million Americans rely on food stamps
Every day, I talk to guys at our plant who get up early in the morning to work 12 hour shifts while neighbors who make their living off the government teat sleep in and drive better cars as well. They ask me if we, in fact, aren’t the fools for working rather than leeching.
Let your conscience be your guide. I, for one, will never let myself go so low as to let my neighbors bear the burden of supporting me.
I am retired and live on a small pension and Social Security (something I paid into all my life). I neither ask anything from the government nor do I expect anything from them other than what is due me from SS.
A record 46.5 million Americans rely on food stamps...
This is 46.5 million Americans who will rely on food trucks that will never come to save them when the collapse comes.
We will NEVER prosper as a nation with the entitlement mentality. We now have GENERATIONS of so called “Americans” who have lived on the government dole and have absolutely no intention of doing anything different, and indeed teaching their multitudinous progeny how to game the system.
Even the mass graves won’t be free...
She spent her days sewing garments on an industrial Sewing Machine while trying to keep up her production quota. Did I mention she was BLIND?
My Father almost had to physically put her in his old jalopy and take her down to the Welfare Office. She was EMBARRASSED having to go on Relief at the time. There was no money to spare and most of the extended Family lived in squalor, including my Mother and Father.
I think she got $10 or $20 a week and was grateful for the temporary help, but it embarrassed her none the less.
Nowadays, there is no pride, no shame and no thankfulness for getting the help funded by hard working Taxpayers. When you turn the Safety Net into a Hammock, you get a population of ungrateful louts who think that they are owed a living.
In the Pelosi video, a man waiting in line is drinking beer and smoking cigarettes as he admits that he’s fathered five children by four different mothers. “I’m here to get a check … whatever they’ve got to offer,” he explains. “It’s not like they’ve got a checklist … I’m just here to get what I can get.”
Of course he was. In the video, Alexandra Pelosi quizzes one man: “Why should I help you? Why should my tax dollars be going to you?” He replies, “Because my ancestors came here to help build this place – my ancestors, the slaves.” The last time the man worked, he says, was “half a decade” ago.
Amazing.
When the rubber hits the road - as it inevitably does - the drones of the world will perish, unable to adapt.
Just watch.
Yesterday afternoon I stopped at the market on my way home. The county I live in is in the Pacific NorthWest. It is run by extreme liberals who use the environment for a catch all to stop business creation, job growth and development of any kind. The result is that young people either leave after graduation or go on some sort of subsistence.
While I was in the checkout line I couldn't help but overhear a conversation between two young women in their early 20's. One had a child in her arms and a young one walking, the other was pregnant. The one with kids was schooling the other on where to go for assistance. She knew every option from WIC, to unemployment, food stamps to disability, rent assistance, food bank, bus passes and even how to get paid for classes at the local college extension that taught things like beach watching and parenting. She told her to be sure to call the health department because they would sent a traveling nurse out to teach her how to breast feed and bring lots of "good stuff" for the baby
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A life of government dependency isn't just confined to urban areas. It is designed to guarantee democrat voters far and wide. LBJ began the idea aimed at black voters but, it has expanded to all elements of society.
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